If Sashi was offended, it didn’t show. “No, I don’t think so. At any rate, he’s not in the picture,” she said.
I considered saying “I’m sorry,” but that seemed sort of presumptuous, like it implied Sashi wasn’t a great parent by herself.
Luckily, she changed the subject for me. “Those mountains are just beautiful,” Sashi commented, twisting in her seat to see how far around us they went. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Grace was now focused on a tablet screen. “It’s like you live inside a picture frame.”
I smiled. “I hadn’t thought of it quite that way, but I suppose we do.”
Sashi settled back into her seat. “So. Are you my patient? The witch with the mental scar tissue?”
“Boundary witch, yeah.”
I glanced over to see her reaction. Sashi’s eyes widened, and her knuckles went white on the door handle. “Really,” she breathed. I saw her shoot an instinctual protective look toward the backseat.
I suddenly felt like Dorothy herself might pop up and throw a bucket of water at me. “I don’t live in a house made of gingerbread,” I said pointedly. “Haven’t eaten any children all year.”
Sashi had the grace to blush. “Sorry,” she said, still looking uncomfortable. “I’ve just never met a boundary witch in person before.”
“I’ve never met a thaumaturge in person before either.”
Sashi took in a deep breath and blew it out hard. “Right . . . right,” she stammered. Her voice was still a little shaky. “Tell me about this scar tissue, then.”
I explained about how I had most of the boundary witch powers—I could sense life, communicate with someone on the other side, and pull the spirits out of small animals. I didn’t say anything about sucking the life out of humans, pressing vampires, or bringing Simon back from the dead. Even I thought those abilities were scary, and Sashi was already looking at me like I was the inconvenient byproduct of a mad scientist’s experiment. “But I can’t see remnants, except on Samhain, when they were really strong. And my friends think it’s because I blocked off that part of my magic when I came into my powers.”
Sashi cocked an eyebrow. “From what I know of boundary powers,” she said slowly, “seeing remnants isn’t something you can turn on and off, like the way you sense life. You’ll see them every night, when they are visible. Why would you want that ability back? I mean,” she added, “you must have blocked it off for a reason, yes?”
“Maybe, but I need it back now,” I said. “It’s important.”
“Would you say it’s a matter of life and death?” she asked, and now there was a little mischievous sparkle in her eyes.
“And I would know,” I said wisely.
“Well, I volunteer at a children’s hospital in Vegas, where I’ve done a bit of work with psychological trauma—kids are really good at building up the kind of scar tissue you’re describing. I can’t heal natural-born psychological problems like manic depression, but I can usually knead at the damage caused by trauma.” She frowned. “I’m not sure it’ll work on you, though, given that you’re a witch as well.”
“Have you worked on Old World individuals before?”
She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “Not much. I mostly work on humans who are injured in compromising situations at the casinos. A long time ago, I helped a few werewolves by working around their magic and talking directly to their bodies—their original cells. I’m not sure about a witch, though, given that you were born with your magic. I was upfront about that on the phone,” she added in a hurry, in case I was about to demand my money back. Well, Maven’s money.
“I know,” I assured her. “I’m aware that it may not work at all. I just honestly don’t have any other ideas about how to break through.”
She nodded. “Well, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Meanwhile we’ll need a quiet place to work.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And someplace where Grace can go.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” I informed her. “Ryan, the man who spoke to you on the phone, booked two rooms for you and Grace.”
“Excellent. She can veg out in front of the television. Where are we staying?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “My employer, Maven, made the call on that one. I think you’re gonna like it.”
Despite the cheesy name, the Hotel Boulderado is one of my hometown’s many historic treasures. In 1909, the residents of then-tiny Boulder decided that the only way to boost their town’s prominence and importance was to add a grand hotel. They solicited stocks from local businesspeople, held a contest for architectural designs, and let the leader of the Let’s Build A Hotel! movement come up with the name. He promised no one would ever forget it. And that part’s still true—you can’t exactly draw a blank when you see “Boulderado” on your credit card bill.
I led the Brightons through the heavy front door and over to the small concierge desk across from the original 1909 elevator, which still works but you couldn’t pay me to ride. The moment we walked in, Sashi Brighton’s face stretched into a gleeful smile.
“Oh, my God, it’s the hotel from Misery!” she exclaimed, practically bouncing up and down with excitement. “Gracie, you seeing this?”
Even the teenager looked impressed. “So cool,” she breathed.
When I raised my eyebrows, Sashi remembered herself and straightened up a little. “Big Stephen King fan here,” she explained. “Grace just started reading some of them too. This is the hotel where Paul Sheldon stayed whenever he finished a book. I can’t believe we get to stay here.”
I smiled. “Boulder has plenty of nice modern places, of course, but we figured, being from Las Vegas . . .”
“No, this is perfect.” She caught my eye and gave me a little nod, and I knew she’d picked up on the other, unspoken reason for this location. If there was anywhere in Boulder that was almost guaranteed to be haunted, it was a hotel that had seen its centennial nearly a decade ago.
“And hey, the hotel from The Shining is just an hour north of here, if you have time before your flight,” I added. Sashi’s eyes went so big, I couldn’t help but smile again.
We got the keys and went through the center of the hotel, a beautiful, rectangular atrium topped by a stained-glass ceiling. Though small, the whole interior is done in gleaming oak, accented with marble pillars, which gives the place what Sam used to call “old-timey fanciness.” We got Grace set up in her own room with the remote control and some snacks, and then Sashi and I headed into the other unit, where Sashi directed me to sit down at the small round table in the corner.
I was starting to feel a little weird about this—even though it’d taken over a day to set up, it suddenly seemed like this meeting was happening really fast. Consulting a magical healing witch was, at the very least, socially awkward, sort of like walking into a strip club, a therapist’s office, or a Chinese grocery store for the first time—you just don’t know what to do. Weirdly, it reminded me of being in Iraq, suddenly surrounded by customs for which you have no frame of reference. And yet, this was my world now too.
“All right?” Sashi asked, seeing my expression.
I nodded. “Um, what do you want me to do?”
In answer, she held out her hands across the table. Given the surroundings, I had the sudden impression that we were in some old movie, holding a séance. Which was actually kind of funny, because if anyone were going to lead a séance, it would probably be me. I copied her, holding out my arms. To my relief, she didn’t take my hands, which would have felt intimate, but instead grasped my forearms and closed her eyes. “Just try to be quiet,” she said. “It’ll take a few minutes to assess, and then to see if I can actually—oh.”
Her eyes popped open and she jerked her hands back, looking at me with confusion. “How did you . . .”
She trailed off, and I had to prompt, “How did I . . . what?”
Sashi blew out a sharp breath. “Sorry, let me just try that again.” She took my arms and
closed her eyes, and her brow furrowed almost instantly. When she opened her eyes a moment later, she withdrew her hands again, more slowly this time.
“Something . . . unusual is happening,” she said finally. “I should be able to sort of listen to what’s happening in your body, but I didn’t think I’d actually be able to communicate with it.”
“But you can?”
“Easily.”
I opened my mouth to explain that something was off about the magic in Colorado right now, and this could be related, but I stopped myself. Here was a chance for independent confirmation of our theory about the magic going haywire in Colorado, and I didn’t want to sway Sashi’s opinion. “Hang on a moment,” she said, standing up. “I’m gonna run next door and read Grace. I want to know if it’s you, or if it’s this place. Something’s not right.”
I nodded and waited where I was as Sashi used her key to enter Grace’s room. She was back in seconds. “Well, it’s not just you,” she said. She was rubbing one hand with the other and then switching, as if they were injured or scarred. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“Yeah, about that. One of the reasons I need to talk to this specific remnant is because we think something is . . . stirred up with the magic here,” I explained. “I would love to get your impression of how it feels, since your power is a little more . . . um . . . family-friendly than my own.”
“Oh.” She nodded slowly, processing that. “Don’t you have other witches who can give you that kind of feedback?” she asked. “Sybil and her sisters and brother?”
“That situation is complicated,” I said honestly. “I’m trying to figure out exactly what’s going on so I can put a stop to it. It’s causing all kinds of problems.”
Sashi just shrugged. “It’s like a boost, really. Like I’ve suddenly got a bit more . . . juice. But it doesn’t feel like it’s fully under my control, either. It’s . . . well, ‘artificial’ isn’t quite the right word . . . but it feels forced.”
“Huh.” No one had actually put it like that before, but if whatever was messing with the magic in town was actually boosting power, that might explain why it was affecting less powerful witches more than those who already had strong magic, like Hazel—and, apparently, myself. I remembered Hazel’s analogy about magical ability working like a battery. It was as if everyone had been given a charge.
Like it or not.
Sashi took a deep breath. “Are you sure you want me to work on you?”
I nodded. “I’m sure.”
“All right.” She took my hands again, and this time kept her eyes closed, cocking her head a bit as though she were listening to something. Maybe she was. Seconds passed, and then something began to spread through me: some kind of glow or warmth. It started in my center and undulated outward in small waves. It slowly faded, taking with it all the aches and pains from the fight with Tony. I suddenly felt my stiff muscles unknot and relax, felt the strength return to my limbs. It wasn’t the same feeling you get from painkillers—not a numbing. It was more like a cleansing. “Oh, wow,” I breathed. “That’s amazing.”
“Thanks,” Sashi whispered. “But I shouldn’t have been able to do that.” She frowned again, and opened her eyes to give me a puzzled look. “I shouldn’t be able to help a witch this much. Even your magic is wide open for healing right now, Lex.”
“That’s good, right? Did you do it?”
“Not yet . . . listen, I found the psychic scar tissue. I haven’t pried into it yet, but I can sense that you’re right—it has to do with you blocking something when you were young.”
“And?” I prompted.
“And . . . um . . .” She squirmed in her seat, looking suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m not quite sure how to say this, but that’s not the only mental block your mind has built for you.” I froze. “Did something happen to you a few years ago, in the desert?”
Chapter 29
Without meaning to, I jerked my hands away. I could feel the blood drain from my face, and my just-restored body tensed up all over again.
I could never remember exactly what happened to me during those final days in Iraq. The last thing I recalled was riding in the Humvee. We were guarding a supply line along the desert road, and my gunner was joking about his girlfriend’s aversion to his new mustache. Then there was noise, heat, and a sensation of movement like we were being dragged.
The next thing I knew, I was staggering out of the desert outside the town, covered in dried blood with sand caked into it. My clothes were in shreds, and I had internal injuries, shrapnel wounds, and burns on my back that had been done with something like a hot poker. The doctors in Germany had called it torture, but I couldn’t remember any of it.
I’d always been grateful for that. Despite the urging of the shrink I’d talked to at the VA, I’d never wasted a moment trying to bring those memories back. I’d recovered, come home, and attended the funerals of all of those who’d died around me.
But I still woke up sometimes with the taste of sand in my mouth.
Unable to bear Sashi’s kind gaze, I jerked my chair back and paced over to the window, looking out on Spruce Street. “I was a soldier,” I said to the window. My voice sounded brusque, though that hadn’t been my intention. “I don’t remember all of it.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Sashi said carefully, “The human brain is incredibly complicated, Lex. I’m very good, but I can’t promise you that I can heal one scar and leave the other. It may be an all-or-nothing prospect.”
I nodded, understanding the weight of the decision before me. I stared through the window glass, not really seeing the street beneath me. I didn’t know what having those memories back would do to me. I didn’t even know if I’d be able to function. If I curled up in a catatonic ball underneath Sashi’s hotel bed, I wouldn’t be much good to Maven, or Charlie, or anyone else.
On the other hand, if I didn’t do this, we had no way of contacting the one spirit who might be able to help us. The sandworm, the Unktehila, would keep killing people. The vampires would challenge Maven again, and more of them would die. And the werewolves . . . I shivered. The goddamned werewolves would come back into Colorado. And all of that was before I even took Charlie’s future into account.
I went back and sat down at the table. “Do it,” I said simply.
She nodded. “This will take a few more minutes,” she warned me. “The brain is a very complex instrument, and even healing a simple clot or cut takes time. Healing the mind is a much more delicate endeavor.”
“Got it.”
She shot me a brief, sympathetic smile, and closed her eyes again. I closed mine too, trying to think of something else, trying not to concentrate on those last days in Iraq. I thought about Charlie, and what she was doing right then—it was one of my mother’s days to take care of her, so she was probably giving my niece a midmorning snack right now. John and my father were both working at Luther Shoes. I pictured their offices, the route I would take to visit them. Elise would have finished caring for the herd by now, so she was probably already at home, recovering from her night shift. My cousin Jake, the vet, would be at his clinic, and his daughter Dani would be in—
The rush of images abruptly snapped over me, like a pile of sticks breaking over my head. Only it wasn’t on the outside of my head, it was inside, and there was no stopping the memory of pain, such pain, and the thirst and tears. I tried to jerk my hands away from Sashi’s, to make it stop, but she held me fast, and I was too overwhelmed by the burst dam of memory to fight her.
The night was overcast. So dark; a frightening, muggy blackness. We never even saw the IED. Cisco had died in the crash, and Myers and Randolph were shot as they crawled away from the ruins of the Humvee. They’d taken me, kept me alive, because I was female. Didn’t remember some of that. I remembered being told that the army thought I was dead, thought I’d been vaporized in the explosion.
They didn’t want information. That was the scariest part. I
fought, hard, and they hurt me. Then they killed me: slashed my femoral artery. The blood exploded out of it. They’d videotaped this part, I thought—I still had nightmares about that video surfacing.
I woke up in a shallow grave at the edge of town. I was facedown, curled up; there was a little air . . . my eyes opened and I began screaming . . .
“No!”
I skittered backward until I reached the end of the little space between the wall and the bed, pulling my knees against my chest defensively. “No no no no no,” I chanted.
“Lex . . .” Sashi’s voice seemed to be coming from a great distance. She approached me, crouching down, and I flinched away. “I did my best,” she murmured. “But I imagine some of the memory is bleeding through. What can I do to help?”
I shook my head, unable to form thoughts just then. It was too much, too overwhelming. I’d begun rocking back and forth, hitting my back against the wall on each rotation.
A moment later Sashi threw something around my shoulders. The bedspread. She set pillows on either side of me, building me a sort of fort. I nodded my gratitude, and the thaumaturge reached out to smooth my hair, but I flinched away from her.
“Lex . . .” Sashi said gently. “Why don’t I take Grace sightseeing? You can just rest here for a little while.”
She began to move away, but I reached out and grabbed her hand. “I didn’t expect you to be so nice,” I whispered.
Something passed over her face then, a shadow. A very old sadness. “I won’t say I’ve been where you are,” she said quietly, “but I do know how it feels to try to make something better, only to have the rug pulled out from beneath you at the moment you thought you had your footing.” She squeezed my hand. “Is there someone I can call?”
It was daylight. Quinn wasn’t available. “Simon,” I mumbled. “Simon Pellar needs healing. My phone . . .”
Boundary Lines (Boundary Magic Book 2) Page 19
